


Pins and Needles

by Mithrigil



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Art, Execution, Gen, Interrogation, Revolution, The Revolution Will Be Televised, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 19:13:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1790122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is only fitting that the life of a stylist begin and end on television.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pins and Needles

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is old, nearly forgotten. I'm sharing it now so I don't forget again.

**One: Ari and Atia**

Of course they drag them out together. The Capitol has thought of them as one for so long: _AriandAtia_ , joined at the hip but never at the hand, they need all four hands free to paint the world gold and silver.

But if they were not together, the Capitol might not recognize Atia at all.

The Peacekeepers have stripped Atia of makeup, of flashy clothes and dyes and wigs. They’ve done the same for Ari too, but Ari looks like himself without them, and Atia does not. Atia looks like a man, aged fifty-one, shaved bald enough for wig-caps and just as bald all over where laser surgery still holds true. Atia has no breasts, no hips, no curves without corsets or padding to hide too-jagged bones and too-long arms, tied behind a bare male back.

They set Ari down in front of the cameras first, knock him to his knees with the stocks of their rifles. Atia, they show off, give the commentators time to know precisely what they’re seeing. Atia has never faced the cameras without makeup before, and can’t help trying to hide.

“You’re beautiful,” Ari says, when they force Atia down beside him.

“And you’re a flatterer,” Atia says, smiling at him as much as she can.

They can’t hold hands, but they manage to nestle their ankles together as the executioner reads the charges.

 

**Two: Lucida**

“How dare you,” she says, “after all I’ve done.”

“Don’t blame us,” the interrogator says, shrugging. “Blame Cinna Ward.”

Lucida spits blood through her gemstone teeth. “Never.”

 

**Three: Glabrio, Dido, and Trebonius**

It isn’t the first time Dido’s been electrocuted. It’s not even the first time the voltage has been potentially lethal. But it is the first time the shock has been intentional, and not the result of a design gone wrong.

It shows.

And it’s not the first time Glabrio and Trebonius have been right there with her, but it is the first time they haven’t rushed to her side and helped her up and asked her if she was okay.

That’s because it’s the first time they’ve ever been electrocuted at all.

 

**Four: Drusus**

Drusus still isn’t sure what’s going on, and he hates it. Oh, he has inklings, he’d be an imbecile if he didn’t have inklings. He’s known since they dragged him off that he’s not the only stylist they’ve locked up. He’s known since they started questioning him that this is about more than just burning wedding dresses and protests of the Quarter Quell. And he’s known since they only ripped one of his eyebrows off that when he leaves the cell, he’s going to die. But the big picture? Hasn’t a clue, not yet.

When the Peacekeepers open the door and there isn’t an interrogator with them, Drusus braces himself on the wall and stands up without their help. They unshackle him only to shackle him again, hands behind his back this time instead of spread apart, and apart from that they don’t lay a hand on him. He can hear the others screaming and crying and confessing to all manner of irrelevant crimes, clearer now that he’s in the hall and making the march instead of locked up and waiting. A lot of things are clearer, out here; who knows what, and who should have, and who’s getting out of this alive. The lights of the cell block are orange and ivory and gold.

Cinna’s precious Girl On Fire is still on every television screen. The Peacekeepers sneak glances even as they bear Drusus away.

And then everything, everything clears itself up when they shut Drusus in with the cameras.

“Drusus Caldeen Averman, you have been found guilty of treason, and conspiracy against Panem.” He doesn’t know where the voice is coming from, but all the lights, all the blinking and snapping and churning lights, those are the cameras. They advance, to get a better angle as the Peacekeepers wrestle Drusus to his knees. Whatever is reading the charges goes on and on, but Drusus is too busy laughing.

He gets it. It’s all a big joke, and the joke’s on him, and it’s been on him for ten goddamn years, and he _gets_ it.

The cameras are close enough to hear him, aren’t they?

“Finnick,” Drusus says, sighing as someone arranges his shoulders. “I always knew you’d be the death of me, you little idiot. Sorry if it’s implicating you,” he goes on, shouting, drowning out the charges, staring right into a camera’s faceted eye. “But I guess you’ve been implicating yourself for a long, long time, haven’t you?”

There’s no other sound in the room for a while, nothing but clicking, lenses shifting and guns at the ready.

“It has been an honor,” Drusus says truthfully, “and a—”

 

**Five: Laetitia**

“Look,” the interrogator goes on, setting down the knife she just used to carve twelve slashes into Laetitia’s chest, “he had to have told you _something_. Artists don’t keep secrets, do they? Not from each other. You’re the least cutthroat people in this bright, clean, shining world.”

Laetitia laughs until her throat hurts as much as her chest.

“Do I have it wrong?” The interrogator picks up the knife again and puts it in Laetitia’s hand. “Then show me how cutthroat you are.”

 

**Six: Tullia and Ostoria**

“Tullia?” It’s the same interrogator as before, the smiler, with her surgical smooth skin and her wide black eyes, and Tullia would rather gouge out her own than see those again. “Tullia, it’s just me. Are you ready to talk?”

“Go to hell,” Tullia whispers. She can’t cover her ears but she can jam one into her shoulder and that’ll at least put some of the sound away.

“I’m not going to hurt you if you do,” the interrogator says. “I might not even hurt you if you don’t. That’s up to you. But I brought someone you might be more willing to talk to.”

Someone topples into the room on high-heeled shoes. They scrape, and a body hits the tile floor.

“You can talk to her if you don’t want to talk to me.” When Tullia looks up, that smile is shining, catching all the hot light from the hallway. “But she won’t talk back.”

The heap on the floor struggles, grabs Tullia’s ankle. Ostoria’s black lips are cleaner than Tullia’s ever seen them. She shouts, and the walls of her mouth are candy red, and the sound isn’t human anymore. Tullia really, _really_ wishes she could cover her eyes, her ears, anything.

 

**Seven: Galba**

“It’s that little cunt Johanna’s fault, isn’t it.” Galba lets one of his teeth fall from his mouth. It bounces on the tile floor.

“Interesting,” the interrogator says, and crosses her legs. “Tell me more.”

 

**Eight: Gianna**

Gianna knows that whether she talks at all, she will give something away. Silence has always been her art, coaxing expression out of cloth and color and motion. Whatever it is they want to know, they don’t have to ask her.

She wishes she could tell the others.

But she can’t. Telling the others would mean explaining, would mean confessing that she does know more than she should, would mean relating and recalling all the nights this year she’s overheard Cecelia and Alec on the phone and that they don’t just talk about their children. They talk about the factories, how sad people are, how hateful, how desperate, how hungry. But Cecelia’s in the Arena now and she may already be dead. It can’t hurt to tell, can it? Can’t hurt the ones who are already dead.

But Alec and the children are still alive.

And besides, there’s no one Gianna can tell, except the interrogator, and she has no right to know.

So Gianna says nothing, nothing, nothing, and she hopes that it makes her forget how to speak at all.

 

**Nine: Caepio and Junia**

“Do you think there’s anything they actually want?”

“Not that we can give them.”

Caepio sighs, and sags against the wall. His chains rattle. Junia’s never seem to. “Can’t please ‘em all, I guess.”

“Can’t ever.”

“I wonder how the Games are going.”

“Even now?”

“Yeah, even now.”

“We could ask the guards.”

“They should be coming in soon,” Caepio agrees. “Gianna’s quiet.”

“Gianna’s always quiet.”

“Yeah, but I mean. Quiet.” He jerks his head toward the wall that divides their cells. “I think they came for her already.”

“And you’re still thinking about the Games.” The chains don’t rattle even when Junia rolls her eyes.

He tells her, “That’s because I don’t want to think about anything else.”

 

**Ten: Sosius**

“You know how it is,” Sosius explains. “Sure, Portia and Cinna invented the original, but it’s been over a year since. Once someone else figures it out for you, the rest of your own work’s easy. So I built the belts. She’s got a patent on the fire, but that doesn’t mean she’s the only one who gets to use it.”

“Are you trying to plead guilty to a lesser charge?”

“Is it going to change my sentence?”

 

**Eleven: Trajan**

“Did he ever show you his plans for the dress?”

“Never.”

“I was under the impression you parted on good terms.”

“And one of those terms was never to interfere in each others’ work again. That’s a pretty good term, if you ask me,” Trajan says. He’s thirsty, and hoarse, and plain fed up with this, and if they haven’t killed Cinna yet Trajan might well do it _for_ them at this point, but the truth is the truth, and Trajan is telling it. “Look, if you’d just tell me what you want to know, and believe me when I say I don’t know a fucking thing, we can all go home and watch the Games. Unless they’re over by now, are they? And if you don’t want to make this easy, then you’re a murderer, and Cinna’s right, and you can suck my cock.”

“Before or after I rip it off?”

“I don’t care, and neither do you. You think I don’t know what’s going on? It’s getting pretty damn quiet in the halls right now. Why do you people always go in order?”

“’You people’,” the interrogator drawls, “ _’you people’_. Do you hold yourself apart, Trajan? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“I’m not telling you to go fuck yourself. I’m not telling you that I’m willing to cooperate. I’m not telling you that just because there’s a little bad blood between me and the ex-boyfriend who’s apparently about to get me castrated and killed for something I didn’t fucking do, that I’m going to kneel here and cry and name names so I don’t die alone. I’m already not alone. You’ve been torturing and killing all the stylists and prep teams that came before me. I’m not stupid. And yes, I hold myself apart. I’m a fucking artist.”

“You won’t be fucking anything, shortly,” the interrogator says.

“Well, that’s true either way.” Trajan gives her the last winning smile he ever plans on bestowing, cameras or no cameras, pain or no pain. “But I can at least request that you shove it up your tight ass, you philistine whore.”

 

**Twelve: Portia**

“Portia Gibson,” they say, wherever they are, “you have been found guilty of treason, and conspiracy against Panem. You have also confessed yourself as obstructing justice, fencing stolen property, vandalism, arson, inciting revolt, and as accessory to the treasons and crimes of Cinna Ward.”

“That is the worst pun I have ever heard,” Portia says. She wishes she could see their faces. She wonders if they even _have_ faces, or if the voices are coming from inside the cameras. She can’t hear their footsteps, only their breathing and clicking and guns, and even those sounds are swirling in her head, tickling her inner ear. Dried blood flakes off her cheeks like an exfoliant masque. Blindness is hateful, but at least they left her her tongue. It wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining for them if they hadn’t.

She wonders how much they’ve seen. Does the Capitol appreciate its justice system? Does it enjoy the inference of tracker jacker venom outside the Arena? Does it watch its artists tortured, or just killed? Is there a retrospective of Portia’s life, ready to air as soon as she’s dead, so that the Capitol can pretend to be with her as it flashes before her eyes? Is there a soundtrack? A budget? A list, roll credits, of the guards and operatives who’ve watched her through hidden cameras, who’ve heard her through bugs in the walls?

Is the Quarter Quell over? Is Peeta alive? 

“In light of the charges against you,” they go on, unmoved, “we will proceed with your execution by firing squad. You are permitted a last request.”

“Aim higher,” she says. She thinks they comply. “And Cinna? I’ll see you when I can see again. Kiss kiss.”

 

**Thirteen:**

There’s a little lounge in the hospital, with plastic-covered couches and low book-laden tables and plenty of room for stretchers. And a television in the corner, just as on and omnipresent as the ones outside. Finnick holds the remote in his hand, thumb at the ready over the buttons.

“I don’t know how you stand it,” Katniss says.

“I know them,” Finnick explains. “I know every single one of them.”

“That’s why I don’t know how you stand it.”

She sits beside him. His bare legs sweat on the plastic, make it squeak. “Hi, Dru,” he says, to the man with one braided eyebrow tipped in silver, the other half of his face red with blisters and sores. Katniss doesn’t catch the first part of what the man onscreen says, but Finnick’s name is part of it, and then the commentators are drowning him out, saying _it really is a credit to him, isn’t it, Stefania? Finnick’s the last thing on his mind, even now that Finnick’s gone missing. I hope this convinces Finnick to come back to the Capitol where he belongs._

_I do too, Marcus. I sincerely—oh, it’s always so awful to watch,_ the commentator says, as the gunshot cuts off the stylist’s already muted speech. Blood sprays over the camera lens.

“Turn it off,” Katniss says. “Finnick, turn it off.”

But all Finnick says is, “I can’t. And I won’t, until I hear what he said.” He rewinds the clip, presses a few more buttons, turns subtitles on and commentary off and leans forward, his elbows on his knees.


End file.
